


Featherweight

by brutumfulmen



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Getting Together, Insecurity, M/M, Post-Almost Apocalypse (Good Omens), Strong Crowley (Good Omens), Tenderness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-12 10:09:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28883688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brutumfulmen/pseuds/brutumfulmen
Summary: Aziraphale operates under several assumptions about Crowley. Fortunately for the both of them, Crowley never forgoes an opportunity to prove Aziraphale wrong.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 42
Kudos: 224





	Featherweight

“My dear, do you remember Greece?”

Crowley lifted his head from the backrest of the settee he was sprawled across to look at Aziraphale. They were lounging in the bookshop’s backroom following an excellent takeaway meal from a restaurant that never delivered except for those with a little demonic persuasion at their disposal. Now the well-fed angel and he were two glasses deep into their aftermeal wine, and have settled into a relaxation that apparently in Aziraphale’s eye was unacceptable. Crowley paused to take a sip of his wine, a rich Cabernet he swiped from some poor bastard’s trolley in the queue earlier today, as he considered Aziraphale’s question.

“Greece? The country or the movie?” Crowley asked over the rim of his wineglass, a mask of idle interest on his face. Aziraphale looked a tad uncertain for a moment before he replied.

“The country, I believe.”

Crowley made a rude noise. He believed, good grief. “The country that’s in the EU?”

Now Aziraphale’s eyebrows knitted together as he thought, Crowley was stretching the wine-hazed angel’s limits it seemed. “Before it was.”

Crowley paused, let himself appear to be considering it, drew out Aziraphale’s palpable anticipation of Crowley helping him through what appeared such an exhausting topic. “So we thinking… early sixteen hundreds? Good ol’ eighth century? Land’s been there a while, too many Greece iterations to consider as you know.”

“During ancient Greece dear,” Aziraphale replied and took a much longer pull of his wine. Crowley hid a grin into his own, sharp eyes on the soft, giving skin under Aziraphale’s chin as he drank.

“Ancient Greece? Can’t remember if it’s Plato or Aristotle that lived around then.”

“How does that even, oh you snake,” Aziraphale tutted at Crowley who only snorted in response. “You knew the entire time what I was asking.”

“‘Course I did. For decades you insisted on getting olive oil from the groves instead of any merchant we passed by in the empire, remember?” Crowley said, and smirked at the disapproving frown on Aziraphale’s face before he conceded with an exaggerated sigh. “Fine, fine, what about ancient Greece?”

“Well, that is,” Aziraphale gave a delicate gesture with a near empty wineglass, a subtle flush blossomed over his round cheeks. Beholden to such a vision Crowley could not help but pour Aziraphale another glass if only to watch a pleased smile crinkle his eyes. “Oh, thank you. As I was saying, I merely recalled the sporting events, exciting as they were and found myself curious as to their happenings. Did you ever find a chance to watch?”

“Eh,” Crowley eloquently replied as he leaned back into the settee and pulled a long sip of wine, draining the glass, a fingertip played along the rim in idle motions. “Might’ve once in a while, they were decent enough. Joined a couple in my off time. Won a match.” Won several, but Aziraphale did not need to know that side of things. During those days Crowley had entered into the games on orders from Front Office to tempt as many of its participants as possible into his bed and down the road to Hell. To the seething respect of everyone down there he accomplished that with his usual excellence, and later found the games a lot more of a challenge.

The most unbecoming noise came from Aziraphale and drew Crowley out of the middle distance, which the angel quickly attempted to cover up with a cough that brought out his pocket handkerchief, a careful dab to his mouth. Those blue eyes avoided Crowley’s narrowing ones, until his empty wineglass was set down on the side table with an audible clink and Crowley leaned forward.

“Got a problem there, angel?” A wave of a hand as Aziraphale cleared his throat and glanced over to Crowley with an embarrassed smile tilted upon his wine-stained lips. Far too charming a look for so ridiculous a creature.

“Apologies, I am sure you were quite the accomplished, ah, discus thrower,” Aziraphale said with the air of someone who not only forgot their initial thought, but disbelieved everything that followed thus far. “Though truth be told, I always pictured you moreover as a runner.”

It was out his mouth before he knew better. “I wrestled, actually.”

Aziraphale’s eyes went wide and Crowley grimaced. Did he have to look so damn surprised?

“Wrestled,” Aziraphale repeated, disbelief etched into every line on his face.

Crowley rolled his eyes. Now he was getting offended. “Yes, real life wrestling. The kind where you put hands on someone and try to throw them out of the ring. Or over your head, or to the ground—”

“Yes, yes I am aware. It merely seems so,” Aziraphale gestured vaguely around his head, for once at a loss for words as Crowley remembered his wrestling days with a touch of nostalgia. The grappling and dodging in the centre of a stadium amidst the roar of thousands of Greek spectators chanting for their favourite as they fought to deliver one hell of a show. Whenever Crowley had stepped into the ring against a visually heavier opponent he enjoyed their stunned expression as they tried to pick him up or throw him to the ground, unable to counteract his reach and strong limbs, ultimately pinned in a hold so constricting his serpentine form would be impressed. No one ever wins them all, but Crowley can proudly claim to have never been thrown from the ring, far from a featherweight to the astonishment of everyone that ever tried. Mentioned it once or twice or a half dozen at the bars afterwards, to stir a bit of demonic envy of course and get some practice in on the side.

A quiet sigh came from Aziraphale.

“Perhaps it is because I never saw one of your ah, matches, yet I simply cannot picture you as a,” Aziraphale shifted, as though discomfit. “Grecian wrestler.”

 _Or maybe you can’t picture me naked,_ Crowley almost snapped back, clicking his jaw shut before he spoke as his wine-dragging mind replayed Aziraphale’s earlier comment. He claimed to have pictured Crowley as a runner, after all. A band of heat encircled Crowley’s head, threatened to make him sweat at the thought.

“Anyways,” Crowley interrupted before his molten swirl of ire and inappropriate ideas might get the better of him. Not Aziraphale’s fault Crowley kept a carefully crafted persona around him all this time, an easy stride, a more casual approach to life. How else might a demon, let alone the Original Tempter, have introduced themselves to an angel if not by first letting the angel think him harmless? The Arrangement never would have succeeded if Aziraphale, ever so nervous, for a moment knew Crowley capable of overpowering him in the physical sense let alone the metaphysical.

Besides, in the confines of his own heart, Crowley never liked the idea of Aziraphale having any reason to be afraid of him. Acknowledgement of his capability, no matter how Crowley might have tried to word it, felt closer to a threat rather than observation. As always though, his actions backfired on him, and in the case of this omission Crowley now had himself an angel that did not take him seriously.

Which simply would not do.

“Anyways,” his wine-soaked tongue tried once more, pleased the low timbre of his voice seemed to capture Aziraphale’s attention instead of dissuade it. “Once the humans got around to it I preferred a stone carry or even a stone put over Grecian sports. Though, back with the Romans—”

“Please do not tell me you were a gladiator, Crowley.”

Chariot racer, Crowley almost corrected. That was beside the point and would get them even farther off track. What was the initial question Aziraphale had asked, neither of them knew. “Do you even pay attention angel? I just said I prefer stone put, not that you would even know how to throw a stone.”

“I put the Eastern wall’s rocks back in place,” Aziraphale replied like that even counted as a sport. “Quite neatly, in fact. Could not even tell anything happened.”

“With help from a miracle, no doubt. For a wall that vanished a day later.” The look of utter indignation on Aziraphale’s face was delicious, Crowley could almost taste the frustration at being caught in the angel’s thinned lips. Aziraphale opened his mouth, undoubtedly to chastise Crowley, until he softened and eased deeper into his plush chair.

“My dear,” Aziraphale hesitated, fingers twisted into the hem of his waistcoat. “There is no need for you to, to pretend you are something different. It is quite alright.”

“Pretend? I have got a lot more muscle on this body than you think.” Crowley scowled, eyes narrowed as once again the angel’s focus flicked across his long arms and torso, down to the sprawled legs between them on the coffee table. “Weigh more than I look, too.”

At that a pale eyebrow quirked, doubt evident within the minute gesture and enough to set Crowley’s teeth on edge. It was a temptation, to explain to Aziraphale the restraint he kept on his own strength, so different from the angel, who lived through tight-lipped replies, barely there glances and touches, of words never said out of fear of them being the wrong thing, and too much of it. There was a vulnerability, he realised upon the lock of his forked tongue carrying sharp words behind sharper teeth to this entire conversation, in the way that smugly raised eyebrow belied the wavering pull of Aziraphale’s lips. To explain muscle proved denser than fat, than the exquisite padding which protected and formed Aziraphale in all his imperfect corporeality, might be construed in the worst way possible. A pain point Aziraphale’s defences would assume Crowley meant to press his thumbs deep into rather than caress with all the gentleness a demon capable of.

“You’re forgetting I’m a demon, angel,” Crowley reoriented and countered with the miraculously refilled wineglass sloshing in his grip for emphasis. “Powers of the air and all. We’re built for physical prowess and earthly pleasure. Wrestling had both.”

Crowley downed the rest of his wine in a forceful gulp. He would not think about grappling Aziraphale into submission underneath him, the both of them sweating with exertion from Crowley’s heavy weight pinning him down. He refused.

“Nonsense, I could never forget any part of you, my dear,” Aziraphale’s mouth seemed to seal shut then, and his expression halted as one that had revealled too much, or did not like what it saw in Crowley’s own shocked face. The moment passed when his mouth ticked down the slightest before he cleared his throat. “But yes, unlike this alleged physical prowess, I am fully aware of your so-called ‘earthly pleasures’.” Now, it seemed Aziraphale’s once playful tone had soured but he shook his head and occupied himself with his wineglass.

“Say angel, since you’re so certain that I’m weaker than you,” Crowley unfolded his long body from the chair, stretching upwards and enjoying Aziraphale’s pinched expression as he let his joints crack in audible relief. “Go on and give it a try,” Crowley spread his hands in deceptive supplication, an invitation for Aziraphale to step forward and prove his claim, like the viper coiling itself and appearing smaller, but in truth preparing to strike. The work of the angel’s pale throat caught his attention, constrained by that ever-present tartan bowtie. Not for the first time Crowley wondered if he might be allowed to ever loosen that complex knot over Aziraphale’s throat and hear him breathe deep at last.

“It is not about being weaker,” Aziraphale protested, his frown a touch guilty, voice gentler than before if that was possible. “You are simply, well.”

Alright, even Crowley can admit that his mortal body looked rather unassuming to many, especially nowadays. Height might be on his side but unless someone undressed him - a thought he shelved immediately in the presence of Aziraphale - they would never guess after the muscle compacted to every inch of him, roping long limbs and building his core. Snakes were like that, though. Sinuous, made entirely of muscle and coiling power, how could Aziraphale not see that in Crowley?

“So you won't admit I’m both stronger and heavier,” Crowley bit out, not too pleased with the possibility Aziraphale looked at him and was entirely unimpressed by what he saw. Unwilling to be hurt by the notion. Aziraphale seemed to rally himself at Crowley’s ire, the risk of admitting defeat in sight. A shift in his overstuffed chair, the wineglass passed from hand to hand and eventually laid to rest on the end table.

“Very well, my dear.” Aziraphale tugged the worn hem of his waistcoat, smoothed it down while he made to stand. “Once I have proven there is nothing about your physical form that is not pleasing we can get back to my question about Greece.” It did not seem that Aziraphale was aware how loose his tongue had become, but Crowley watched him wince as he sobered up and a brief look of mortification flashed over his softworn features before he glanced away. Crowley inhaled as the ache in his chest subsided, choosing to horde those words away from his urge to dissect and turn them every which way for another time. Unfolding his long legs, Crowley said not a word on the matter and did the same upon rising off the settee as he clicked his tongue in distaste, took a moment to crack his back because why not.

“How do you want me, angel.” Crowley murmured, hated the phrasing but it straightened Aziraphale’s posture, bringing the angel back to him. Those wide blue eyes focussed on Crowley again, a flicker down Crowley’s long body, then he cleared his throat. Twice.

“What should I do?”

Crowley stepped forward, and Aziraphale’s head tilted as their height difference made itself apparent. “Put your arms around me, you’ve lifted things before I’m positive.”

“Not another being,” Aziraphale hemmed, but he complied. Two arms reached for Crowley and he swallowed as his heart leapt through his chest into his throat at the sight. How surreal to watch as Aziraphale’s arms wrapped around his narrow torso a fraction above Crowley’s navel. There was a breath pulled in by that wide chest, then Crowley felt his back arching into Aziraphale as the angel prepared to lift him.

This was a bad way to lift, with no bend in the angel’s knees to brace and gripping from Crowley’s middle instead of his hips or thighs. It hurt the back of the lifter and threw everyone’s balance off, but Crowley would let Aziraphale learn for himself. In the meantime, Crowley also let himself have this, the sensation of the most beloved angel Crowley’s ever known holding him close to his person, as though he intended to embrace Crowley rather than lift - or attempt to lift - him up. Crowley’s hands twitched at their awkward sides in resistance to returning the hold, instead he ever so carefully slouched down to rest his chin atop those white-blond curls and inhaled a powder-delicate scent he knew would always mean home to him.

“Well then,” Aziraphale murmured into the hard plane of Crowley’s chest where he was certain his mortal heart hammered hard, felt those soft arms briefly squeeze around Crowley’s middle, then ease. “Here we go.”

Crowley grunted at the sudden, awkward crush of his ribcage into Aziraphale and cursed under his breath. Aziraphale’s grip on him was terribly uncomfortable even though Aziraphale had taken a step back to brace himself, there was a tremble in his arms already as he tried in vain to separate Crowley’s body from the floor. A touch amused and ever in love, Crowley brought his weight to the balls of his feet and subtly pushed up to keep them both balanced, chest going tight at the soft noise of relief Aziraphale made.

“Oh. Well, this is not so bad,” Aziraphale mumbled, voice strained for some reason. None of Crowley’s weight was on the angel now, so he must be convinced of his earlier assumption being correct. Crowley could not help but smirk, allowing Aziraphale barely another moment of triumph before he hummed and let himself drop back onto his heels.

“Oh!” Aziraphale stumbled forward or might have had Crowley not remained upright, his large hands snapped up to grip the angel so as to keep him close. Where Crowley longed for him to always remain.

“Now that was terribly unfair.” Aziraphale scolded as he eventually regained his balance, face flushed with exertion and something Crowley dared not consider possible. Too soon Aziraphale was stepping from Crowley’s grasp, those hands which had held Crowley to his body like a lover now readjusting his waistcoat and bowtie into proper order.

“However, I must concede you are,” he struggled over his words, fingers stumbling over the bowtie. “Far more dense than I anticipated.”

“Dense!” Crowley sputtered. The nerve!

“In terms of physical mass, that is.” He watched Aziraphale move back over to their seats and pick up the bottle of wine. “Though I am still certain of my earlier assumption regarding your claims of actual strength since this proved little.”

Crowley hissed in annoyance and shook a finger at the angel. “No, no. This is a two part debate, angel, so now it’s my turn. Come here.”

Aziraphale’s expression froze, before melting into a polite, restrained neutrality that would make Crowley reconsider if he did not already know what had happened. He had armourplated himself as a result of Crowley’s demand, the way Crowley only saw Aziraphale do so when he must endure a particularly uncomfortable situation. Unable to bear knowing he caused it, Crowley silently crept forward, but the movement made Aziraphale turn away to refill their wineglasses and brought his eyes up from the floor darting towards the four walls of the cluttered backroom.

“I think this entire discussion has gone on long enough,” Aziraphale set the empty wine bottle down, made no move to lift his own glass. A bad sign. “Your point has quite soundly been proven and mine as well. Let us leave it at that.”

“Why the sudden change? You think I can’t lift you?” Alright. Perhaps Crowley did think about picking Aziraphale up, had been looking forward to it. Sometimes when the angel was especially coy he imagined hauling him over a shoulder and walking out of a restaurant, or up the stairs to the bookshop’s flat. Nevermoreso had Crowley’s instinct been curtailed than when Aziraphale refused him not once but twice, during Armageddon. Outside of that, however, in more tender moments, rare as they were for a demon to indulge, Crowley entertained the notion of sweeping Aziraphale off his feet, a kiss to the angel’s forehead, mouth, anywhere in reach and allowed. Leading them to a more intimate setting where the two of them could be together without care for anything but each other’s comfort.

“Well, I—” And that’s when at last Crowley followed Aziraphale’s avoiding eyes, that brief moment his gaze shifted had been enough for a demon attuned to six millennia of angelic side glances to catch. Over near the backroom’s cracked open door was where Aziraphale’s eyes had landed, where Crowley had left the discarded takeaway bag from their earlier meal. Rather, the meal for two Crowley had ordered so he could spend the next three hours watching Aziraphale eat every bite with the reverence of a gourmand.

“I would be terribly remiss to,” Aziraphale continued and swallowed his following words, the work of his throat above that bowtie curled Crowley’s hands into fists so he did not reach out and undo it. “Let you be disappointed with the outcome.”

Oh, angel. For all his attempt to ghost over that obvious pain point, Aziraphale had been digging into it for perhaps the entire conversation. This had never been about Crowley being weaker than Aziraphale, it had been about the angel taking refuge in the idea that there was another person similar to him. Lacking in the ways their former offices wanted them to be, but enough for each other. Instead Aziraphale learned his assumption on what Crowley had thought to be a small matter was painfully wrong, no longer true. For Crowley this had been a positive he could provide, for Aziraphale it shattered something he once relied on.

As if that takeaway bag represented anything to Crowley other than another job well-done at keeping Aziraphale, his fat, wonderful angel, well-fed and replete. Crowley would sigh if he knew it would not immediately shore up Aziraphale’s defences. Make him think Crowley agreed with so absurd an idea about the angel he loved. Aziraphale needed to know his compassion-fueled heart, his every age line and forehead wrinkle and ripple of his softly giving body, was all Crowley ever needed these past six thousand years and the countless more ahead.

“Hold still,” Crowley rumbled, tongue suddenly too thick for his mouth as his hands came to rest on Aziraphale’s wide waist, which prompted a flinch from the angel, but nothing more when Crowley smoothed them along his sides. “I want to settle this once and for all.”

“You will crease my clothing,” Aziraphale protested, a touch strained as Crowley then bent at the knees and circled his long arms behind those plush thighs, his sharp cheek to the curvature of a stomach that’s trusted Crowley to nourish it with wine and food and laughter for millennia.

“There’s nothing about you that needs to change.” Aziraphale went taut in Crowley’s strange embrace and before either of their courage might fail Crowley lifted Aziraphale up off the ground with ease. His back straight and his hold steady, Crowley tilted his head to look up at Aziraphale’s all too fragile face staring down at him. Two hands pressed hard into Crowley’s broad shoulders, fingers with blunted nails dug into the thick fabric of his shirt as though afraid Crowley’s strength would buckle under Aziraphale’s weight and leave him falling. Determined to prove his fear wrong, Crowley took several careful steps forward until the angel could feel something at his back, his laden bookshelves. Something to ground him, make him realise he never needed to worry about being let down, of one day being more than Crowley could handle.

A quick shift allowed Crowley to lower his arms, his face sliding up along the soft belly and chest to level with Aziraphale’s eyes, wet-sheened and wide they were, pooled with a quiet stunning as Crowley tried his best to soothe over that pain point.

“Absolutely nothing about you I don’t adore. You must know that, Aziraphale.” Aziraphale’s lip trembled and he turned away, nowhere to go except into Crowley’s embrace and Crowley let him find a sanctuary in the hollow of his neck.

How strange, Crowley thought as he stood there with Aziraphale in his arms, the concept of these millennia together. Six of them and not once has he held Aziraphale in any of the years contained within, even at the airbase that moment Adam brought the angel back to the corporation he knew so well. Never thrown him over a shoulder as they fled a battlefield, Crowley’s rifle in shaky hand and his legs screaming from the muddy give of mortared earth underneath them. Never a comforting embrace when the child of God hung dying on a cross and Aziraphale’s faith by a thread. Not even when the angel stumbled down from the high walls of Eden in the dark after the finally rain stopped with Crowley’s long arms ready to reach out and steady Aziraphale until he remembered himself and instead waited at his side.

Aziraphale’s side.

That was where Crowley belonged, and none of those moments had happened because of this. Aziraphale never was on the battlefield because Crowley intercepted the letter and went in his place, Aziraphale never fell apart at Golgotha because Crowley’s forked tongue managed to talk and wine and dine all that creeping, familiar darkness away. Aziraphale never stumbled down from Eden because Crowley kept his fingers aglow with a new flame for Aziraphale to follow. At Aziraphale’s side he had never needed physical strength, all Aziraphale had needed was him.

Him. Crowley’s chest caved inwards with the enormity of it all.

Crowley lifted his head to meet the angel’s open stare, nudged his nose to Aziraphale’s upturned one, though who leaned in first neither knew for certain, but did it really matter? It happened regardless, as gentle as Crowley always hoped he could make it for Aziraphale, that first touch of their lips together. He inhaled the soft, startled noise Aziraphale made, felt it burst inside his lungs as he moved his mouth over Aziraphale’s, tasted and learned what he never thought could ever be his privilege to know. The hands on his shoulders twitched, one relinquishing its hold to curve around the sharp of Crowley’s jaw, fingertips to his temple and the short auburn hair above his tattoo. He cradled Crowley’s face as they kissed, like he was something precious, like he too, could not believe this was theirs.

How long Crowley stood there holding Aziraphale tight to him and coaxing the angel through their kiss mattered not, he had not been lying about his strength. Soon though he felt Aziraphale’s legs shift in his grip, the angle of his feet trying to allow Crowley to slip between them, and Crowley almost dropped Aziraphale at the subtle spread of those shaking knees. An invitation, an offer to make a place for Crowley, all his own. Sucking in a breath Crowley jostled Aziraphale and wrapped those plush legs around his hips, biting back a groan even as Aziraphale yelped and tried to cling tighter.

“Easy,” Crowley murmured before he went back to their kiss, let his mouth detour to brush along the delicate shell of an ear, delighting in the shiver through Aziraphale from crown to toes. “I won’t let you fall.”

As if there were anything about Aziraphale that Crowley could not carry, from his insecurities and doubts to his longings and dreams over the years. The parts of him he felt too heavy for Heaven, too weak and wanting for anyone to care for.

Aziraphale shuddered out a shaky rush of breath in reply, soft hands twitching from their appointed anchorhold on Crowley’s unyielding shoulders as he rocked into the welcoming cradle of Aziraphale’s thighs, unable to stop himself. A desperate moan, perhaps both of theirs, sounded between them into the din, warm air and Crowley chased it with another move of his hips, captured Aziraphale’s responding cry with his mouth.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale sighed, eyes fluttering shut and his head tilted back against the bookshelf, his flushed neck exposed. Delirious in his desire and freed from restraining it, Crowley finally sunk his fangs onto the edge of that hideous tartan bowtie and pulled it away, watched Aziraphale breathe deep with a rumble of approval.

“You’re doing perfectly,” Crowley praised and grinned wickedly into the thundering pulse of Aziraphale’s neck at the angel’s gasp, let his sharp teeth graze that delicate skin. They moved together in slow, short bursts of pleasure, Aziraphale’s legs trembling in Crowley’s grip at the persistent grind of his clothed cock against the jut of Aziraphale’s own, hard and twitching through his old-fashioned trousers. Crowley flicked his long serpent tongue out to catch on Aziraphale’s earlobe, yanking a hiss from him at the sweet cloy of angelic arousal and clean sweat chasing rivulets underneath the angel’s layers, which have been lifted to make way for a curious hand to slide against.

It was exquisite, the aching discomfort of his heavy cock confined to his tight jeans, thrusting eagerly into the crease of Aziraphale’s groin and thigh. The promise of it all made scales rippled up his spine. Crowley could imagine tearing those trousers off the angel and without breaking stride sink that pliant body down onto the blunt head of his eager cock. Press him hard into the shelf so he had nowhere to release his pleasure other than into Crowley’s unyielding grip, heels scrambling at Crowley’s sides as the angel was thrust into again and again. Until Crowley spilled himself deep into Aziraphale’s tight heat with long, wet pulses of come and brought Aziraphale tumbling over the edge with him, calling his name. Maybe one day soon, after he proved deserving of such a gift, after he brought Aziraphale through his first pleasure here and now in Crowley’s arms, the way Aziraphale needed.

Crowley rutted his sharp hips harder between those spread thighs, gripped Aziraphale tighter to him and helpless in how he hissed at the thread of a soft hand into his auburn fin of hair. A precise grind made Aziraphale whimper and Crowley kept at it, all signs the angel was close in clear view, possessive in his knowledge of being the one to deliver him there. The way Aziraphale’s head fell back, his eyes fluttering shut, the flushed exposure of his neck and panting chest, all because of Crowley.

“You must know that,” Crowley repeated, unable to stop the words and his climax from overtaking as he shuddered, his body caught alight. “How much I adore you, how much I love you.”

“Crowley, oh, Crowley,” Aziraphale moaned and Crowley, tremendously, helplessly in love, watched the angel go taut in his arms and fall into bliss with a soft cry. Another push forward and Crowley shuddered as his own cock twitched its release all while Aziraphale writhed in his tight embrace. Crowley continued to move through it, groaned his own pleasure with each throb of his cock as it spilled wetly into the fabric of his jeans and shivered when he felt Aziraphale’s twitch in response, felt the tremor in his fingers locked into Crowley’s hair, held him close. Neither pulled away even when Crowley slowed down, his body trembled with the aftershocks of his climax but still he held Aziraphale up, kept his now dangling, tired legs draped around narrow hips. A sigh puffed warm and damp into Crowley’s neck, then another, the hands on his body relaxed from well-earned satisfaction. Pleased beyond reason, Crowley nudged a kiss to Aziraphale’s flushed temple, another to his warm cheek, and waited for Aziraphale to come down from his afterglow.

“I do now,” Aziraphale whispered after a long stretch of quiet between them, pulled a questioning grunt from a lax Crowley. “I always assumed, I, I had never thought, never dared hoped for it to be in the same way I felt for you.”

“You and your assumptions.” Crowley soothed Aziraphale with another kiss, his relief-soaked heart at risk of beating out of his chest. There would be time enough later for that. Catharsis, as good as it felt, as much as they needed it, solved little. So few of Aziraphale’s deep-borne worries and fears, even less of Crowley’s concerns and missteps, but it had been a start. One they now had. Against all instinct to hold him forever Crowley eased Aziraphale’s feet to the floor, chuckled as Aziraphale made a noise of displeasure at the unfamiliar dampness between them, but perhaps more so upon being forced to carry his own weight. However brief Crowley planned on making him do so.

But first.

“So, what’s the final verdict?” He asked, unable to resist the pride in his roughened voice, which Aziraphale heard given how he sniffed delicately but allowed Crowley to keep both hands settled on his waist, nonetheless.

“I must say you are quite,” Aziraphale’s mouth, pink and swollen and glistening with saliva that Crowley put there, closed abruptly. Mutinous, and rather aggravated looking at the end result to the conversation from earlier, he never did handle being wrong well. Crowley’s own mouth, as thoroughly kissed as his counterpart, curved upwards.

“Yeah?” Aziraphale frowned, a scold ready in those lips, he could tell. Crowley leaned down to capture it, dizzy with wonder at the ability to do so, and when he pulled away the scold was gone and only a soft, amused smile remained.

“Yes, quite.” Crowley shifted closer and coaxed Aziraphale to wrap his arms around Crowley’s shoulders, his own large hands caught under the fold of Aziraphale’s knees and along his back. A surprised yelp sounded throughout the bookshop as Crowley swept Aziraphale off his feet, and with each step he pressed a kiss to the angel’s laughing mouth.

“I’ll show you something else I’m ‘quite’ at.” Aziraphale only hummed in curiosity from his place in the hollow of Crowley’s long neck, to which Crowley let him stay there as they climbed the winding staircase that led upstairs to the flat’s about to be formerly unused bedroom.

“Quick thing, though, angel.”

“Oh?” Aziraphale lifted his head, eyes half-lidded with adoration, and Crowley did not bother to resist kissing him again.

“Yep. Open that door for me, will you?” Crowley murmured as they parted, hoped Aziraphale had felt the fond grin still on his lips. “Seems I got my hands full.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading.


End file.
